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(1) CROTCHETY GOES TO TOWN. Amazing Stories’ Steve Davidson gets his Boskone report off to a fast start with a post about Day 1.

I’m at Boskone this weekend, hanging out with the fans, loquaciously displaying my intimate knowledge of arcana on several panels and availing myself of various perks offered by this long-running (53rd year) convention that was launched as a bid for the 1967 Worldcon.

It’s operated by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA), one of the longest running fan clubs in the country.

One of the things NESFA does is clear out their library and make the clearances available on a freebie table. Last year, someone snagged a bunch of large-size Analogs out from under my reaching hand (‘sigh’). This year I was one of the first ‘gleaners’ to hit the table and was rewarded with:

several D series Ace Doubles; a good-sized stack of early Locus fanzines; same for File 770; a handful of Groff Conklin paperback anthologies (filling in a couple of gaps. The paperbacks are shortened versions of the hardback anthologies Conklin produced over the years.); a couple of Lee & Miller hardbacks; a NESFA anthology of Lester Del Rey shorts (edited by our own Steven H. Silver); the remaining issues of Galileo magazine that I didn’t have (complete run now!). (Galileo was a “semi-prozine” from back in the late 70s); a few issues of Infinity digest magazine, and a smattering of this and that interesting looking items.

I’m thinking a loquacious displayer would be a great subject for an Audobon drawing.

While in San Francisco for a panel on artificial consciousness, I had an opportunity to stop by the headquarters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation — dedicated to preserving your freedom online and off. As part of their 25th year anniversary celebration, EFF released Pwning Tomorrow, an anthology of science fiction stories by Bruce Sterling, Ramaz Naam, Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, David Brin, Lauren Beukes, and others. You can download it for a donation to this worthy organization.

Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage brings five decades of Star Trek to concert halls for the first time in this galaxy or any other.

This lavish production includes an impressive live symphony orchestra and international solo instruments. People of all ages and backgrounds will experience the franchise’s groundbreaking and wildly popular musical achievements while the most iconic Star Trek film and TV footage is simultaneously beamed in high definition to a 40-foot wide screen.

The concert will feature some of the greatest music written for the franchise including music from Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Starfleet Academy and much more. This never-before-seen concert event is perfect for music lovers, filmgoers, science-fiction fans and anyone looking for an exciting and unique concert experience.

I want the science fiction community to be inclusive and accessible to disabled people. I want our conventions and corners of the internet to be places where disabled people are treated with dignity and respect. I’m hoping that if I walk through some of the more common misconceptions, I can move the needle a little–or at least save myself some time in the future, because I’ll be able to give people a link instead of explaining all this again.

What is Disability?

This may seem like starting from first principles, but a lot of the misconceptions I’ve encountered within the science fiction community have been rooted in a poorly thought-out model of what the term ‘disability’ means….

(13) AND SPEAKING OF EATING. Scott Edelman says a second episode of his podcast Eating the Fantastic has gone live, with guest Bud Sparhawk.

Bud Sparhawk

I chatted with Bud—a three-time Nebula finalist and Analog magazine regular—about how Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology inspired him to become a writer, what it was like to write for three different Analog editors over four decades, the plotters vs. pantsers debate, and more.

Re the “everyone looks alike” thing… People used to carry on conversations they were having with my brother when they saw me, and vice versa (we’re 5 years apart in age! I don’t know if he should be flattered or I should be offended). I have also, on occasion, shouted and waved like a madman at someone I thought was a friend only to realise it was just some other white guy with a beard.

@Oneiros I have also, on occasion, shouted and waved like a madman at someone I thought was a friend only to realise it was just some other white guy with a beard.

All white guys with beards look the same. #NotAllBeards

I get mistaken for my mother. People stop me when I’m in MA aren’t you…. Doesn’t matter where in MA I am. We have much more than a 5 year age difference. When we are together most people think we are sisters and she is my age or younger. This was true in HS so no sense in being offended. In HS I thought it was funny.
#ImNotMyMom

@Tasha: I’m also a white guy with a beard, so I’m really not helping the problem at all. What distinguishes me here is that I still keep my hair long (long enough that I can finally tie it into a ponytail again woohoo!) while most men here either keep it short or shave it all off because of the heat.

“I think I god stalk, so what am I so afraid of?
I’m afraid that I’m not sure of a god there is no stalk for
I think I god stalk, isn’t that what life is made of?
Though it worries me to say that I’ve never stalked this god”

(Apologies to Voice of the Beehive, and of course the Partridge Family.)

ME: “Who’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike in that app trailer that’s on TV right now?”
HIM: *peers at tv* “That would be Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

To his credit, he didn’t twit me about it at all. But then he knows me well, and is familiar with my … mild case of face-blindness? Difficulty with faces out of context? I’ve certainly got something like that going on. Certainly not on the level RedWombat describes, but enough that I’ve developed certain strategies and scripts for dealing with it.

I’ve taught myself to say, despite the embarrassment, “I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names the first fifty times after I first learn them. Can you remind me what yours is?” It’s practically a script now, but it saves me from doing the pretend-you-know-every-time-you-see-them-until-it’s-too-late-and-too-awkward-to-ask-ever-again thing.

2. Contextual face-blindness + Roller derby

Seems like most skaters have, to some extent, the problem of “I didn’t recognize you with your helmet off!” We all get pretty good at identifying each other right off the bat by things like tattoos and body build. And some people who’ve been with the league several years claim they can identify all of us just from a photo of our butts. Certainly being able to identify a skater by her shape and movements/body language is a thing. But faces? Helmets really do a number on facial recognition.

But I think I take first prize for the night when, as part of our recruiting committee, at an event held at a local restaurant, I attempted to recruit someone who A. was already in the league, and, worse, B. was a fellow member of the recruiting committee, on hand to help host the event. I excused myself by the usual “you’re not in your helmet and you’re all professionally attired!” thing, but, honestly, that one really takes the cake.

I’ll repeat the anecdote to other skaters, though, to help someone else feel less embarrassed about having their own face-myopic moments. I’ll also tell ’em how I used to not be able to tell the two sisters apart that were in my beginning skating class *at all* except by their helmet decorations. It was just a very strong family resemblance, but for all of me they might as well have been identical twins. Thankfully, by the time they got new helmets I had got better at recognizing them.

I think what my brain does is, it immediately identifies faces as belonging to broad categories (defined by broad differences in shapes), but doesn’t distinguish within those categories very well until I’ve spent significant amounts of time with the person in question.

Nicole, to be fair, I’m really good with faces and some names if I’ve seen them enough or if they’re famous. And the first time I saw that ad, I thought it must be an Ah-nuld lookalike, because what the hell would he be doing in an ad for a phone app free game? (Also, possibly makeup, lighting, plastic surgery… the latter messes up everyone’s face-recognition)

The only way I could recognize local pro basketball players in the mall as a kid was b/c it was a mostly-white average-height area and so extremely tall black men stood out. But I’d still have to look carefully to see which one of the guys it was. I find numbers super-helpful on sports teams.